SAN GIOVANNI ROTONDO, Italy (CNS) — Many people admire St.
Padre Pio, but too few imitate him, especially in his care for the weak, the
sick and those who modern culture treats as disposable, Pope Francis said
during Mass at Padre Pio’s shrine.

“Many are ready to ‘like’ the page of the great saints,
but who does what they do?” the pope asked March 17. “The Christian
life is not an ‘I like,’ but an ‘I give myself.'”

Pope Francis celebrated the Mass outside the Shrine of St.
Pio of Pietrelcina with about 30,000 people after visiting children in the
cancer ward of the hospital St. Pio founded, Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza
(House for the Relief of Suffering).

In his homily, the pope reflected on three words that both
summarized the day’s readings and, he said, the life of Padre Pio: prayer,
smallness and wisdom.

Smallness, he said, calls to mind those whose hearts who are
humble, poor and needy like the young patients cared for in Padre Pio’s
hospital and those who in today’s world are unwanted and discarded.

Departing from his prepared text, Pope Francis said he
remembers being taught in school about the Spartans, who, “when a boy or
girl was born with malformations, they would take them to the top of the
mountain and throw them over.”

“We children would say, ‘How cruel,'” the pope
said. But, “brothers and sisters, we do the same. With more cruelty and
more knowledge. Whatever isn’t useful, whatever doesn’t produce, is thrown
away. This is the throwaway culture. The little ones are not wanted
today.”

“Those who take care of children are on the side of God
and defeat the throwaway culture, which, on the contrary, prefers the powerful
and considers the poor useless,” he said. “Those who prefer the little
ones proclaim a prophecy of life against the prophets of death of every age.”

Only with wisdom, motivated by love and charity for others,
can true strength be found, he said. Christians aren’t called simply to admire
great saints like Padre Pio, but rather to imitate their way of fighting evil
wisely “with humility, with obedience, with the cross, offering pain for
love.”

Prayer, he said, is “a gesture of love” that is
often stifled by excuses and leads to Christians forgetting that without God
“we can do nothing.”

“We must ask ourselves: do our prayers resemble that of
Jesus or are they reduced to occasional emergency calls? Or do we use them as
tranquilizers to be taken in regular doses to relieve stress?” the pope
asked.

Padre Pio recognized throughout his life that prayer
“heals the sick, sanctifies work, elevates healthcare and gives moral
strength,” he said.

Pope Francis began his day of tribute to St. Pio with an
early morning visit to Pietrelcina, where the Capuchin saint was born in 1887.

Thousands waited outside the square of the Chapel of the
Stigmata which houses a piece of the elm tree Padre Pio sat in front of when he
first received the stigmata — wounds on his feet, hands and side corresponding
to those Jesus suffered at the crucifixion — in September 1918.

Pope Francis entered the chapel where he prayed privately
for several minutes before making his way to the square to greet the faithful.

Standing in front of an iconic image of a young Padre Pio
bearing the wounds of Christ’s crucifixion in his hands, the pope said that it
was in Pietrelcina that the future saint “strengthened his own humanity,
where he learned to pray and recognize in the poor the flesh of Christ.”

“He loved the church, he loved the church with all its
problems, with all its woes, with all its sins — because we are all sinners;
we feel shame — but the spirit of God has brought us here to this church which
is holy. And he loved the holy church and its sinful children, everyone. This
was St. Pio,” Pope Francis said.

Recalling the time in Padre Pio’s life when he returned to
Pietrelcina while he was ill, the pope said the saintly Capuchin “felt he
was assailed by the devil” and feared falling into sin.

Departing from his prepared remarks, the pope asked the
people if they believed the devil existed. When only a handful of people
responded, he told them it didn’t seem “they were totally convinced.”

“I’m going to have to tell the bishop to give some
catechesis,” he said jokingly. “Does the devil exist or not?”

“Yes!” the crowd responded loudly.

Christians, he continued, should follow the example of the
Capuchin saint who did not fall into despair but instead found refuge in prayer
and put his trust in Christ.

“All of theology is contained here! If you have a
problem, if you are sad, if you are sick, abandon yourself in Jesus’
arms,” the pope said.

The Greater Cincinnati Ancient Order of Hibernians march in the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
The statue of St. Patrick leads the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)

A January ruling by the United States Sixth District Court of Appeals remanded the deportation case of Fairfield resident Maribel Trujillo Diaz back to the Cleveland-based Bureau of Immigration Appeals for a new hearing.

Tony Stieritz, director of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s Catholic Social Action Office, said a date for a new hearing has not yet been set.

Stieritz said the appeal was filed by Trujillo Diaz’s attorneys prior to her deportation. “That case was pending since she has been deported.” The U.S. District Court of Appeals, based in Cincinnati, “ruled on it and basically said — in pretty stern language — that the Bureau of Immigration Appeals had abused its discretion and aired in its judgment in not reviewing Maribel’s updated asylum plea.”

The Bureau of Immigration Appeals, under the U.S. Justice Department, “reviewed her asylum plea and initially turned it down and refused to look at it again after Maribel’s brother had been kidnapped” by a Mexican drug cartel, Stieritz said. “So, she had new evidence to submit that basically says she has a legitimate asylum concern here, and that she should not be deported.”

“This is good news, but far from a victory for this mother and her family who have suffered so much,” said Father Mike Pucke, former pastor at St. Julie Billiart Parish in Hamilton where Trujillo Diaz was a parishioner and an advocate for her return. Stieritz concurred, saying, “We got this wonderful surprise news, but it is nothing earth-shattering. It is a step in the right direction.”

Trujillo, who has no criminal record and had been in the United States since 2002, has been viewed as a symbol of the current administration’s hardline on immigration and its enforcement.

After being identified with about 200 other undocumented workers during a raid at her job in West Chester Township, Trujillo Diaz applied for asylum in 2012. She was denied. Although she testified about fear for her safety, her appeals were dismissed in 2014. She remained in the United States as long as she checked with immigration officials annually and was issued a one-year work permit in 2016. The Board of Immigration Appeals denied her plea in May and she was deported back to Mexico.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A
Vatican tribunal found Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron of Agana, Guam, guilty of
some of the accusations made against him, accusations which included the
sexual abuse of minors.

After a canonical
trial conducted by the apostolic
tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Vatican judges imposed
the following sanctions on the 72-year-old archbishop: the removal from office and
a prohibition from residing
in Guam. The archbishop can appeal the sentence.

Archbishop Apuron
is among the highest-ranking church leaders to have been tried by the Vatican
for sexual offenses.

In a press statement
released March 16, the tribunal said, “The canonical trial in the matter
of accusations, including accusations of sexual abuse of minors, brought
against the Most Reverend Anthony Sablan Apuron, O.F.M.Cap., Archbishop of Agana,
Guam, has been concluded.”

“The apostolic tribunal
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, composed of five judges, has
issued its sentence of first instance, finding the accused guilty of certain of
the accusations and imposing upon the accused the penalties of privation of
office and prohibition of residence in the Archdiocese of Guam.” U.S.
Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a noted canon lawyer, was the presiding judge in the
canonical investigation of Archbishop Apuron.

“The sentence remains
subject to possible appeal,” the Vatican statement said. “In the absence of an appeal,
the sentence becomes final and effective. In the case of an appeal, the imposed
penalties are suspended until final resolution.”

Archbishop Apuron had been
accused of sexually abusing several boys in the 1970s, and, in early January,
one of the archbishop’s nephews publicly claimed the archbishop had sexually
abused him in 1990. Archbishop Apuron continually has denied the abuse
allegations.

Pope Francis placed Archbishop
Apuron on leave in June 2016 after the accusations were made public. The pope named an apostolic
administrator to run the archdiocese for several months and then named
Coadjutor Archbishop Michael J. Byrnes, a former auxiliary bishop of Detroit,
to take over.

Until the Vatican court
handed down its sentence, Archbishop Apuron had continued to hold the title of archbishop
of Agana, but did not hold the faculties, rights or obligations pertaining to the office, because they
had been granted to Archbishop Byrnes.

Students gather at the 50 yard line to read the Stations of the Cross and then do 40 seconds of conditioning after each Station is read. (CT Photo/Greg Hartman)

Tonight and throughout Lent, many have and will participate in the Stations of the Cross throughout the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. The stations grew out of pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem and walking the Via Dolorosa to Calvary.

On March 15, La Salle High School football players continued that tradition in a very unique way. Spring is a time for conditioning for the players, and on this day, it was combined with the 14 Stations of the Cross.

The men started bringing weights down and created a large circle for their place for conditioning. They would “bring it in” and read a Station of the Cross, with various players reading each station. Then they would return for 40 seconds of conditioning. They ended with 14 push-ups representing each Station of the Cross. The 40 seconds of conditioning represented the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert before His ministry.

The Third Station: Jesus Falls the first time

The Fourth Station: Jesus meets his Mother, Mary

This devotional by these men also was a way to understand “sacrifice.” As each station was replicated, the task became more and more difficult.

The Thirteenth Station: Jesus dies on the Cross

Fourteen Stations, Fourteen Pushups

Reaction of Faith Formation at LaSalle:

Brody Ingle: “Carries on into the discipline aspect of carrying through life and into my job and hopefully my kids someday.”

Cam Porter: “Great experience going through the struggle, understanding what Jesus went through, and I would do it again.”

Coach Jeff Weirman: “A way to bring our sports ministry program what’s going on in the weight room.”

Head Coach McLaughlin: It’s not that our responsibility is that we can do both (spirituality), but that we do both.

Check out the full interview below:

At La Salle, the program is not just conditioning for the upcoming football season, but a program of mind, body, and spirit.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — What was meant to be an
intellectual tribute to Pope Francis has instead become the backdrop to the
latest tempest over transparency and this pontificate.

On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the
election of Pope Francis, the Vatican publishing house, Libreria Editrice
Vaticana, unveiled a series of 11 books focusing on the intellectual roots and
thought of Pope Francis.

Numerous theologians contributed to the
volumes, and they are being published in several languages.

In a press conference attended by Catholic
News Service, Msgr. Dario Vigano, prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for
Communication who oversees LEV, explained that he had asked retired Pope
Benedict to “write a page or a page and a half of dense theology in his
clear and punctual style that (we) would have liked to read this evening.”

Pope Benedict responded with “a
beautiful, personal letter,” Msgr. Vigano said. The retired pope explained
that he could not write a theological reflection on the 11 volumes because he
had not read them and would be physically unable to do so in time for the March
12 presentation. However, he expressed the hope that the series would
contradict “the foolish prejudice of those who see Pope Francis as someone
who lacks a particular theological and philosophical formation ‘.”

Pope Benedict said the books “reasonably
demonstrate that Pope Francis is a man with profound philosophical and
theological formation and are helpful to see the interior continuity between
the two pontificates, even with all the differences in style and temperament.”

So far, so good.

However, when the Secretariat for
Communication released a photo of the first page of the letter, two lines at
the end of the first page were blurred out, making it look as if someone had
intentionally obscured the fact that the Pope Benedict had not read the series,
and leaving only the words defending his successor.

Two days later, some Vatican watchers began
writing about the blurred photo.

At this point, the blurring, not the book
series, became the story. As reported by the Associated Press’ lead Vatican
reporter, Nicole Winfield, “The Vatican admitted Wednesday that it altered
a photo sent to the media of a letter of retired Pope Benedict XVI about Pope
Francis. The manipulation changed the meaning of the image in a way that
violated photojournalist industry standards.”

Sources at the Vatican explained that the
letter itself was never intended to be made public, which was why the second
page was obscured in the carefully staged photo. One source called it a “photo
illustration.”

U.S. photojournalists adhere to strict
standards regarding any sort of manipulation of a photographed image. AP norms,
which are followed by Catholic News Service, state that “no element should
be digitally added or subtracted from any photograph.”

Whatever the intention on the part of the
Vatican Secretariat for Communication, the obscuring of a portion of the letter
suggested something they did not want everyone to see. Read in this context,
Pope Benedict could be seen to be qualifying his generic support for the
publication of the series.

For those who attended the press conference,
the context of Pope Benedict’s comments was clear, and the fact that Msgr.
Vigano read out loud the lines that were subsequently obscured in the image makes
the incident sound more like a matter of poor judgment than deception.

The controversy comes on the heels of the
publication of Pope Francis’ World Communications Day message, which criticized
the phenomenon of “fake news,” defining the phrase as “false
information based on nonexistent or distorted data meant to deceive and
manipulate the reader.”

The entire incident is a reminder that in a
media-sophisticated age, with a media-omnipresent pope, the Vatican
communications apparatus must be committed both to transparency and to best
journalistic practices. Anything less is a disservice to the church.

UNITED
NATIONS (CNS) — Mely Lenario quietly described her harrowing journey from
ambitious, naive rural girl trafficked to hopeless, drug-fueled urban
prostitute, through slow rehabilitation to a new life as an outreach worker.

After
she finished her story, hundreds of people in a U.N. conference room jumped to
their feet in a sustained ovation.

Lenario
spoke March 13 on “Preventing Human Trafficking Among Rural Women and Girls,” a
panel co-sponsored by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the
United Nations.

As
an 8-year-old, Lenario was abused by her stepfather in the Philippines. He
threatened her at knife point after she watched him rape her sister. When she
confronted her mother and neighbors about it, she was placed into a Jesuit-run
orphanage for seven years.

As
a teen, she accepted an offer of work and a free education from an elegant
woman visitor who arranged transportation to Cebu, a city distant from her
hometown. In Cebu, she was prostituted and forced to use drugs to stay awake
all night and improve the glum demeanor that discouraged customers.

Lenario
begged for release but was told she had to pay for the transportation and other
expenses incurred by her traffickers.

She
resigned herself to a life of prostitution. “I felt hopeless and worthless. I
felt already ruined,” Lenario said.

Ultimately,
she met compassionate women and men religious who introduced her to the Good
Shepherd Welcome House in Cebu. With their help and five years of effort, she
overcame her drug habit, finished high school and trained to be a nurse’s aide.

“I
had to learn how to forgive myself and the people who caused me pain,” she
said.

Lenario
now studies social work and serves as an outreach counselor to trafficked women
and girls at the Good Shepherd Welcome House.

“I
want to give them hope. I want to be an inspiration and give voice to all the
abused women out there. I want to show them that if I could change my life,
they can, too,” she said.

The
U.N. panel was a side event to the 62nd session of the Commission on the Status
of Women.

It
focused on the contributions of women religious to prevent trafficking by providing
educational and employment opportunities for rural girls, women and their
families, disrupt the “supply chain” of the trafficking business, and help
survivors tell their stories.

Trafficked
women are “marginalized by an environment that can’t meet their needs,” Mercy
Sister Angela Reed said. Therefore, anti-trafficking strategies must address
the root causes of the problem, which include poverty, unemployment,
discrimination, violence, rural isolation and lack of access to education, she
said. Sister Reed is the coordinator of Mercy Global Action at the United
Nations.

“Human
trafficking is one of the darkest and most revolting realities in the world
today,” said Msgr. Tomasz Grysa, Vatican deputy ambassador. Vulnerable rural
women and girls suffer “compounded marginalization” and are at a “cumulative
disadvantage prior to being trafficked,” he said. “Their dignity and rights are
not adequately respected before they’re trafficked, something that makes them
more susceptible to much worse violations of their dignity and rights later.”

Religious
sisters are “going to the existential peripheries” to do heroic work, but they
cannot do it alone, Msgr. Grysa continued. Trafficking is “a global phenomenon
that exceeds the competence of any one community or country. To eliminate it,
we need a mobilization comparable in size to that of the phenomenon itself.”

Sister
Annie Jesus Mary Louis, a Franciscan Missionary of Mary, is executive director
of Jeevan Jharna Vikas Sanstha in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. She said,
“Sexual exploitation is big business, governed by the same principles of supply
and demand as any commercial activity.”

The
sex industry treats people like products and the sex trade has a supply chain
of exploitation driven by demand and fueled by greed, vulnerability and
deception. It is an illusion that women and girls freely choose prostitution,
she said.

The
supply chain can be disrupted and trafficking prevented when families have
opportunities and feel like society cares about them, Sister Louis said.
Families need loving accompaniment and rural women and girls should be
protected with at least the same level of investment that is put into labor
exploitation, she said.

The
rural population is disproportionately affected by trafficking, said Mercy
Sister Lynda Dearlove, founder of Women at the Well in London. Religious groups
with long-term enduring local relationships have an advantage over large
organizations in preventing trafficking, she said.

“Individuals
hold the key to empowering women and girls,” she said. Large international
funding groups sometimes create an unnecessary layer between donors and those
in need, she said.

Sister
Reed said women must be seen as anti-trafficking advocates. The Religious
Sisters of Mercy help women share firsthand accounts to bring women’s voices
into public policy discussions and prevention efforts. “We need to change the
dominant narrative that trafficking is a random act” to an understanding that
it is a sign of systemic marginalization and oppression, she said.

Successful
preventive approaches counter the vulnerability of potential trafficking victims,
Sister Reed said. They include providing an adequate standard of living and
quality education, fostering human attachment and a sense of belonging in
adolescents, and supporting decent work and full participation in society for
adults.

Sister
Sheila Smith, a Sister of the Sacred Heart, who is co-founder of Persons
Against the Crime of Trafficking in Humans in Ottawa, Ontario, described the
mutual relationship between human rights and human dignity in the context of
rural trafficking.

“We
work tirelessly for prevention because we value each other,” she said.

“If I want the Lord to listen to what I am asking
him, I have to go, and go and
go — knock on the door and
knock on God’s heart,” the pope said in his homily March 15 at morning
Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

“We cannot promise someone we will pray for him or her and then say an ‘Our Father’
and a ‘Hail Mary’ and then leave it at that. No. If you say you’ll pray for another, you
have to take this path. And you need patience,” he said.

Pope Francis’ homily focused on the day’s reading from
the Book of Exodus (32:7-14),
in which God tells Moses how angry he is that his people have created a golden
calf to worship as their god. God threatens to unleash his wrath on them and
promises Moses, “Then I will make of you a great nation.”

Pope Francis said Moses does not take the bait or get
involved in “games of bribery.” Moses sticks by his people and does
not “sell his conscience” for his own gain, the pope said.

“And God likes this. When God sees a soul, a person
who prays and prays and prays for something, he is moved.”

Moses had the courage to speak “face-to-face”
and truthfully to the Lord, he said, and successfully implored God to relent
and not punish his people.

“For prayers of intercession, you need two things:
courage, that is, ‘parrhesia,’ and patience,” he
said.

People’s hearts must be truly invested in the thing or person they are praying for;
otherwise not even courage and patience will be enough to keep going, he added.

People
should ask God for the grace to pray frankly and freely to God, as sons and daughters would
talk to their father, knowing that “my father will listen to me,” Pope Francis said.

The Opening Procession enters the church as Christians of Latin, Orthodox, Maronite and Syro Malabar traditions gather for a Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
Fr. George Hajj speaks during the Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
Children sing during the Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
Linda Conour reads from the Bible during the Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
Fr. Nabil Fino, from St. James Antiochian Orthodox Church in Lebanon, delivers his Reflection on the Word during the Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
Tony Stieritz, director of Catholic Social Action, proclaims Prayers of the People during the Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
Members of the faith community join hands and pray during the Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
Faith leaders place their hands on the Altar before giving each other, and then those gathered, the Sign of Peace during the Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
The faith leaders greet each other with the Sign of Peace during the Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)
Fr. Jiby Antony Thekkemuriyil, from St. Chavara Syro-Malabar Catholic Mission in Cincinnati, greets a parishioner with the Sign of Peace during the Lenten Prayer Service for Christian Unity and Religious Freedom at St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Catholic Church in Cincinnati Saturday, Mar. 10, 2018. (CT Photo/E.L. Hubbard)

A detail of one of the illuminations for The Wisdom Books, volume five in the seven-volume St. John Bible. COURTESY PHOTO

Calligrapher and illuminator Diane von Arx will speak on her work on the renowned St. John Bible at Xavier University Thursday, March 22.

“She’s probably the most famous calligrapher in the country,” said University Library Director Ken Gibson. “We would love to have many people come – calligraphers, artists, medievalists, anyone from the public interested in this project.”

Calligrapher Diane von Arx. Courtesy photo

“This project” is the seven-volume St. John Bible. Commissioned by St. John’s University and Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., the Bible is the first hand-made and -illuminated Bible the Benedictines have commissioned in 500 years and is available to purchase as a limited-edition reproduction set. Donald Jackson, widely considered the world’s top calligrapher, directed the project and created the script used in the text.

Von Arx joined illuminators Thomas Ingmire, Suzanne Moore, Chris Tomlin, and Sally Mae Joseph for the volume of Wisdom books (Job, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Proverbs, Wisdom, and Sirach) recently purchased by XU, and will speak on her work for its illuminations, or illustrations/decorative elements accompanying the text.

The lecture is presented as part of XU’s ongoing efforts to share the St. John Bible with the public. “We’re the only library in Cincinnati that has one, “ he said. “It’s really a gift to the city.”

The 7 p.m. lecture will be held at XU’s Conaton Learning Commons-Kennedy Auditorium and will include a question and answer period. The library’s copy of the Wisdom Books will be on display after the talk, as will a variety of tools, quills, and inks used in modern calligraphy projects. Light refreshments will be available.

A full-page illumination from The Wisdom Books, volume five of the seven-volume St. John Bible. Courtesy photo
The first page from the Book of Job in The Wisdom Books, volume five of the seven-volume St. John Bible. Courtesy photo
The cover of The Wisdom Books, volume five of the seven-volume St. John Bible. Courtesy photo

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio with participants in the Spring 2017 Discernment Retreat for young men considering a vocation to the Catholic priesthood and military chaplaincy (Courtesy Photo)

West Coast gathering a part of ongoing effort to fill growing shortage of Catholic chaplains in the Armed Forces

MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA— Twenty-nine men from three service branches of the United States Armed Forces will gather here this weekend for a March 15-18 discernment retreat aimed at helping them determine if they are called by the Holy Spirit to be Catholic priests and military chaplains. The Vocations Office of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS), is conducting the annual retreat at St. Patrick’s Seminary. The prospective chaplain candidates include two from the Army; six from the Navy; thirteen from the Air Force; and eight civilians.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio will take part in the four days of prayer, reflection,and talks, along with Vocations Director Father Aidan Logan, O.C.S.O., and active-duty chaplain recruiters from the U.S. Military: Father Jerzy (George) Rzasowski, CH (LTC), USA; Father Hermes (Andy) Losbañes, CH (MAJ), USA; Father David A. Daigle, CHC, LCDR, USN; and Father Thomas Foley, Ch Capt USAF. Father John Kinney, Ch Lt Col USAF (Ret.), will serve as retreat master.

This retreat is one of two discernment retreats that the AMS holds annually in the United States, one on either side of the country. The eastern retreat will take place Dec. 6-9, 2018, at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. Young men interested in attending the eastern retreat may contact Father Logan at vocations@milarch.org or (202) 719-3600.

The registration of twenty-nine participants for this retreat reflects a trend of strong turnouts over the past few years. That is a great sign of encouragement for the AMS, which is working diligently to overcome a desperate shortage of Catholic priests serving as active-duty U.S. Military chaplains. The shortage comes as a result of attrition: aging chaplains are retiring faster than they can be replaced. The decline has been going on for decades. Just since the time of 9/11, the active-duty roster has shrunk from more than 400 to 205. Currently, 25% of the Military is Catholic, but Catholic priests make up only 6% of the chaplain corps, leaving them stretched thin over a globally dispersed faith community on a scale of only one priest per 1300 service members, not counting their families.

Church studies show the Military itself has become one of the largest sources of U.S. priestly vocations in recent years. According to an annual Survey of Ordinands to the Priesthood by the Center of Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, anywhere from 4 to 10 percent of U.S. priests ordained year in and year out once served in the Armed Forces, and as many as 20 percent come from military families.

The AMS continues to tap this source for prospective chaplains. The Vocations staff is focusing attention on active-duty servicemen expressing an interest in the priesthood, inviting more of them to attend one of the discernment retreats. Over the past few years, this outreach has begun to yield a bountiful harvest, with an increasing number of young men answering “yes” to God’s call through the “Co-Sponsored Seminarian Program.” The AMS established this vocations partnership with cooperating U.S. dioceses in the 1980s to encourage military service commitments from candidates for priesthood. Enrollment has grown from seven (7) in 2008 to an all-time high of forty-seven this year. More are expected to enter the Program in the fall, and the AMS is processing applications of still others. Now, the AMS is struggling to pay for their tuition and other seminary expenses, with its share projected at nearly $3 million over the next five years alone.
The AMS receives no funding from the military or the government. Anyone wishing to make a donation may do so at www.milarch.org/donate.

Young men interested in discerning a priestly vocation, and the vocation within a vocation to serve those who serve in the U.S. Military, can find more information at www.milarch.org/vocations, or may contact Father Logan by email at vocations@milarch.org or (202) 719-3600.

Students in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati participated in National Walkout Day to pray for the victims and to an end of gun violence.

Men of Moeller pray on National Walkout Day (Courtesy Photo)
Students pray at DePaul Cristo Rey victims of gun violence and Purcell Marian student Gregory Thompson. (Courtesy Photo)
Badin High School had a prayer for the victims of gun violence (Courtesy Photo)
Students pray on National Walkout Day for gun violence victims. (Courtesy Photo)

How Catholics can, and why they should, evangelize their fellow Catholics

By Walt Schaefer

His experiences with the Men’s Fellowship Movement and the Cincinnati Men’s Conferences led retired investment officer and philanthropist Declan O’Sullivan to write a book and blog inspired by the growth of the lay-led movement.

“The conference was a means to empower men to get together and share their lives with each other,” he said. The men’s fellowship meetings that created the conferences “were not taking away from anything in the parishes. They were empowering men to go out and help in the ministries of the parish. It really became an important activity.

“My interest is in figuring out how to spread the Gospel through the way an individual lives,” he continued. “There’s little or no evangelization going on. You look at the church as kind of an enormous fortress — a great treasury and a bulwark of how to live, but it’s getting smaller and the influence seems to be less than it was at any time in my lifetime. There is no outward movement. The clergy can’t do that. They’re in a different category, kind of our coaches. They are the people who prepare us, but we’re the people who have to go out on the field and play the game — guys talking about religion and concepts and doctrine and about all the things that happened in their lives.”

“The Evangelizing Catholic: How a Crisis Becomes a Gift” is out of print, but available at Amazon.com and other used booksellers.

After a six-year hiatus, the Cincinnati Men’s Conference has been reborn and co-founder Declan O’Sullivan couldn’t be happier.

“The first men’s conference was in 1995,” O’Sullivan said, and grew rapidly to attendance of nearly 10,000. “Then in 2011, it was placed on hiatus.”

The first Catholic Men’s conference in the country, it inspired similar events around the nation that continue today. Initially fueled by the growth of the Catholic Men’s Fellowship movement, by 2011 “the numbers attending were starting to decline and the number of volunteers did, too,” O’Sullivan said. “The last conference had maybe 1,200 men” — an enviable number for many event organizers, but a shadow of 1998, when some 10,000 men filled UC’s Shoemaker Center (now Fifth Third Arena).

O’Sullivan founded the Men’s Fellowship Movement in 1986 with Kevin Lynch, Father Ken Sommer, and Tom Young, all of whom will be recognized at the revived event in April.

“We developed a fellowship idea at the parish level,” O’Sullivan said. “Men were meeting in fellowship in parishes all over the city. There were a number of chapters — 10 to 20 in 1995. There were dozens and dozens of guys with great enthusiasm all over the city, and from that the men’s conference was born.” Held at St. Gertrude Parish in Madeira, it drew about 500 men.

For his part, O’Sullivan said he’s excited about the return of the conference he spent so many years with, and that prompted him to write a book on evangelization. “I think men are in need of this annual get-together,” he said. “Men are looking for a new role in society, and the spirituality of men is looking for someplace to find something firm. We have that in the Catholic Church and
we need to come together and listen to each other.”

For more on the Cincinnati Men’s Conference, search “Bas Rutten to headline Men’s Conference” and “The book the Men’s Conference inspired.”

“If you would have told me five years ago that I would come to deliver this message,” MMA champion turned actor Bas Rutten said in his introductory video for the Cincinnati Men’s Conference, “I would have told you that you are crazy, my friend.” Now an American citizen who has appeared in feature films and as a regular on the sitcom “Kevin Can Wait,” the Dutch native will share his powerful conversion story. (Courtesy photo)
Mixed Martial Arts heavyweight champ turned actor a staunch Catholic

By Gail Finke

The Cincinnati Men’s Conference owes its revival, in part, to Scotland’s great hero William Wallace.

“’Braveheart’ happened to be on while I was thinking about it,” said Catholic Speakers Organization founder Joe Condit. “A lot of people in Scotland wanted to stand up and fight, but someone had to start. I thought, ‘I’m going to be that crazy guy who gets the ball rolling and hopes people follow.’”

Condit booked the Taft Theater without even one confirmed speaker, he said, but was confident that speakers who normally book two or more years in advance would sign on to the rebirth of the nation’s first Catholic men’s conference. “There are now more than 200 conferences around the country where 50 or more men attend,” he said. “Cincinnati’s conference has been incredibly impactful, what the founders accomplished it needs to be recognized.”

Former UFA Heavyweight World Champion Bas Rutten will headline the conference, which will also feature popular speaker and radio host Father Larry Richards. The remaining speakers have Cincinnati connections: Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa taught at St. Xavier High School, and former Notre Dame Coach Jerry Faust began his fabled career at Moeller, where he was one of the most successful high school coaches in the country.

“Coach Faust was a speaker at the very first Cincinnati Men’s Conference,” Condit said. “He doesn’t speak often anymore, so it’s wonderful that we’ve been able to get him.”

Titled, “Be A Man! What it Means To be a True Christian Man in Today’s Society,” the conference will be held April 28th at the newly renovated Taft Theater in downtown Cincinnati. Events include the four talks, Mass celebrated by Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr, vendors, and lunch.

Sean Ater, director of new evangelization for the archdiocese, said hundreds of area men travel to Columbus and St. Leon, Ind., for their popular men’s conferences. “We know they’re searching for it,” he said. “We’re not in competition with those conferences, we want to give more men an opportunity to come to a conference right here as well, and for men to come from nearby areas. In today’s culture, men are looking for this.”

“Men’s ministry in Catholic Cincinnati got a boost with the first men’s conferences,” added Father Jan Schmidt, director of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s Office for Pastoral Life and Evangelization and rector of the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains. “My hope and prayer is this event will light an evangelizing fire.”

Condit said the idea of the revived conference is the same as the idea behind the original: Bringing good men together. “The world is against the Catholic faith,” he said. “The other side is really organized and well-funded, but what are the good men doing? As the saying goes: Evil prevails when good men do nothing. Men’s conferences are about getting good, like-minded men together for networking and to form organizations, and to bring guys that haven’t been to church for years in and helping them see the need for making time for church in their lives.”

Plans are already being made for 2019 conference, when actor Jim Caviezel (“The Passion of the Christ,” “Person of Interest,” “Paul, Apostle of the Christ”) will be the featured speaker, Condit said. “The Cincinnati Men’s Conference is definitely back and is going to have an incredible first two years.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) — March 14, exactly one month since the deadly
school shooting in Parkland, Florida, students from around the country planned
to walk out of their schools in protest of the nation’s gun laws for 17 minutes.

The time is meant to pay tribute to the 17 students and staff members killed that
afternoon by gunfire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The national
movement, at 10 a.m. in all time zones in the U.S., was organized primarily by
youths working with EMPOWER, the youth branch of the Women’s March, which organized marches for women’s rights in Washington and many other cities after President Donald Trump took office.

Another nationwide school walkout
is scheduled for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the school shooting at Columbine
High School in Littleton, Colorado. A related event is the “March for Our Lives” a youth-led demonstration March 24 in Washington, where 500,000 are expected to attend. Other demonstrations will take place in several U.S. cities to protest current gun laws.

The school walkouts
are intended to make a statement and vary from simply walking out of school for
the allotted time or attending an organized rally.

Most Catholic
schools across the country did not sanction walkouts, but they planned to
mark the somber anniversary of the deadly school shooting in Florida and also support youth-led advocacy of anti-gun violence in a different way — through prayer.

Instead
of walkouts, some schools were hosting “pray-outs,” saying
“rosaries for our lives” or attending school Masses to pray for
recent shooting victims and their families and for an end to violence.

The
focus is in “keeping with who we are as people of faith and a community of
believers,” said Dominican Sister John Mary Fleming, executive director of
the Secretariat of Catholic Education of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops.

Sister John
Mary, a member of the Dominicans’ St. Cecilia Congregation in Nashville,
Tennessee, said Catholic schools that are providing alternative school walkout events are
teaching their students to pray for a situation that needs a response and encouraging
them to take action by writing to legislators about gun legislation.

She sent
Catholic school superintendents an email March 5 acknowledging that “many dioceses
have chosen to support student participation in this important dialogue and
discussion through a clear presentation of Catholic social teaching and
peaceful civic engagement.”

For many
diocesan and private Catholic school leaders, balancing student advocacy and
safety was a critical decision not made lightly.

The
principal at St. Francis High School in Sacramento, California, wrote to
parents in early March saying: “Like other schools and districts across
the nation, we have been wrestling with the type of action we should take as a
school community” to the walkout, recognizing that many students want to
show solidarity and express their views but also noting there are “serious
safety issues presented by students leaving campus in the middle of the school
day.”

The decision,
announced by Elias Mendoza, who is principal of the all-girls school, was to “provide
students with an alternative avenue to express their viewpoints in a
constructive and meaningful way, while remaining on campus.” The school planned
a prayer service for peace and healing at 10 a.m. and said parents who wanted to allow their students to participate in a political rally that day would have to contact
the school office.

The
letter echoed what other Catholic school leaders have expressed: “At the
end of the day, we know our focus is educating students and keeping them safe,
not taking sides in politics or creating policy. Additionally, our staff is
aware that we’re tasked with the responsibility of maintaining political
neutrality in our role as educators, regardless of our own political views.”

Diane
Starkovich, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Atlanta Archdiocese,
said students walking off campus “cannot occur” because of concern
that administrators wouldn’t be able to keep students safe if they left the school
property.

In an email
to The Georgia Bulletin, the archdiocesan newspaper, she said local high school
administrators were talking with students “to allow them opportunities for
solidarity with other students across the country who share the same concerns
regarding gun control and mental illness issues as well.”

On the
day of the national walkout, students at some Catholic high schools in the
Atlanta area will have the chance to exchange their uniforms for clothing with the school
colors of the Parkland high school — maroon and silver – and funds
donated for this will be set aside for the victims of the Florida shooting.

Archdiocesan
high schools also are amending some courses as students have expressed concern
for the Florida high school community and want to talk about gun laws. Theology
classes, for example, will examine these shootings from the Catholic perspective,
asking questions about injustice and violence in the world and how believers
are to respond.

In Michigan, students from throughout the Detroit Archdiocese planned to hold prayerful gatherings to remember the Parkland shooting victims and also a mother and father fatally shot allegedly by their son March 2 at Central Michigan University in the neighboring Saginaw Diocese.

“The Archdiocese of Detroit adamantly detests gun violence of any kind, and I have encouraged our schools to discuss as a community, ways to prayerfully respond to these tragic events,” said Kevin Kijewski, superintendent of schools. “The result is a range of Catholic, faith-based responses to gun violence and a united appeal to the Lord for assistance during these difficult times.”

In the Archdiocese
of New Orleans, all Catholic schools have been asked to have 17 minutes of
prayer during the National School Walkout — beginning with a rosary, followed
by an archdiocesan prayer against violence, murder and racism — a prayer that
is said aloud by Catholics at every Mass in the archdiocese.

“We
didn’t hear of any schools or students participating (in the walkout), but we
were hearing from our school communities,’What could we do, what could we offer
in support of lessening gun violence?'” said RaeNell Houston, the archdiocese’s
superintendent of Catholic schools.

Houston told
the Clarion Herald, New Orleans’ archdiocesan newspaper, that children
deserve to be safe in our school communities and school officials felt that
“intentional, dedicated prayer would yield more fruitful results than a
walkout.”

Chicago archdiocesan
schools also were encouraged to take part in “peacebuilding
activities” March 14.

“We
believe this is a time to come together and work as a community of Catholic
schools to help achieve a lasting peace,” said Jim Rigg, archdiocesan
school superintendent, in a March 6 letter to school principals.

The Diocese
of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, planned school prayer services March 14 as a “positive
way to respond to the concerns of students, for the safety of schools and to
recognize the mourning of a country for so many lost,” a diocesan statement
said.

Father
Edward Quinlan, diocesan secretary for education, said the time of prayer
should not just be focused on the effects of gun violence. “School
violence takes many forms,” he said, “from the tragic assaults we saw
in Florida to the day-to-day bullying and harassment of other students.”

For some
Catholic schools, the alternative walkout day event was simple. St. Saviour
High School in Brooklyn, New York, was having a prayer service in the school
gym that would include reading the names aloud of those killed in the Florida
school shooting. Chaminade College Preparatory High School in West Hills, California,
was inviting students to participate in a 17-minute walk at lunch around the
track as an opportunity to show unity “and honor the students and faculty
who lost their lives.”

A week
before the national school walkout, hundreds of students at St. Teresa’s Academy in
Kansas City, Missouri, walked out of school in one of the first area school protests of gun
laws joining the national discussion about gun legislation, the Kansas City
Star reported.

“We
wanted to make a statement,” said a student of the all-girls school who
was one of the organizers for the event where there were speeches against gun
violence and a letter to local political leaders urging them to take a stand against
gun violence was read aloud.

These
students will not be taking part in the March 14 walkout, nor did their school
plan an alternative event, because they are currently on spring break.

– – –

Contributing
to this report was Christine Bordelon in New Orleans and Andrew Nelson in
Atlanta.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Cardinal
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope just a few days after telling the
College of Cardinals that the Catholic Church faced a clear choice between being
a church that “goes out” or a church focused on its internal affairs.

After the cardinal from
Buenos Aires, Argentina, was elected March 13, 2013, and chose the name
Francis, he made “go out,” “periphery” and “throwaway
culture” standard phrases in the papal vocabulary.

Catholics have a wide variety
of opinions about how Pope Francis is exercising the papal ministry, and many
of his comments — both in informal news conferences and in formal documents —
have stirred controversy. But, as he wrote in “Evangelii Gaudium,”
the apostolic exhortation laying out the vision for his pontificate: “I prefer
a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the
streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from
clinging to its own security.”

But there are two areas of
internal church affairs that he recognized needed immediate attention: the
reform of the Roman Curia and the full protection of children and vulnerable
adults from clerical sexual abuse.

The organizational reform of
the Curia has been taking place in stages, but Pope Francis has insisted that
the real reform is a matter of changing hearts and embracing service.

On the issue of abuse, nine
months into his pontificate, Pope Francis established the Pontifical Commission
for Child Protection to advise him on better ways to prevent clerical sexual
abuse and to ensure pastoral care for the survivors.

While Pope Francis has emphatically
proclaimed “zero tolerance” for abusers and recently said covering up
abuse “is itself an abuse,” as his fifth anniversary approached
serious questions arose about how he handled accusations that Chilean Bishop
Juan Barros, who was a priest at the time, covered up allegations of abuse
against his mentor.

The new scandal threatened to
undermine the widespread popularity of Pope Francis and his efforts to set the
Catholic Church on a new course.

For Pope Francis, that new
course involves evangelization first of all.

“Evangelizing presupposes
a desire in the church to come out of herself,” he had told the cardinals
just days before the conclave that elected him. “The church is called to
come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but
also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of
ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents and of all
misery.”

Mercy is the first thing the
Catholic Church is called to bring to those peripheries, he says.

Although in 2013 he told
reporters he would not be traveling as much as his predecessors, Pope Francis
has continued their practice of literally “going out,” making 22
trips outside of Italy and visiting 32 nations.

But he also regularly visits
the peripheries of Rome, both its poor suburbs and its hospitals,
rehabilitation centers, prisons and facilities for migrants and refugees.

His desire to reach out has
inspired innovations that were noteworthy at the beginning of the papacy, but
now seem to be a natural part of a pope’s day. For example, after beginning
with Vatican gardeners and garbage collectors, the pope continues to invite a
small group of Catholics to join him most weekday mornings for Mass in the
chapel of his residence.

The residence, the Domus
Sanctae Marthae, is a guesthouse built by St. John Paul II with the intention
of providing decent housing for cardinals when they would enter a conclave to
elect a new pope. Pope Francis decided after the 2013 conclave to stay there
and not move into the more isolated papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace.

On Holy Thursday each year, he
has celebrated Mass at a prison, care facility or refugee center and washed the
feet of patients, inmates or immigrants, both men and women, Catholics and
members of other faiths. He also ordered the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship
and the Sacraments to clarify that the feet of both women and men can be washed
at the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper.

During the 2015-16 Year of
Mercy, he made a visit one Friday a month to people in particular need,
including those at a school for the blind, a neonatal intensive care unit, a
community of recovering alcoholics, a children’s group home and a community for
women rescued from traffickers who forced them into prostitution. Once the Year
of Mercy ended, the pope continued the visits, although not always every month.

In September 2015 as waves of
migrants and refugees were struggling and dying to reach Europe, Pope Francis
asked every parish and religious community in Europe to consider offering
hospitality to one family. The Vatican offered apartments and support to a
family from Syria and a family from Eritrea. Then, seven months later, Pope
Francis visited a refugee center on the island of Lesbos, Greece, and brought
12 refugees back to Rome on the plane with him.

Less than three months into
his pontificate, he began denouncing the “throwaway culture” as one
where money and power were the ultimate values and anything or anyone that did
not advance money or power were disposable: “Human life, the person are no
longer seen as primary values to be respected and protected, especially if they
are poor or disabled, if they are not yet useful — like an unborn child — or
are no longer useful — like an old person,” the pope said at a general
audience.

In the first three years of
his papacy, he published three major documents: “Evangelii Gaudium” (The
Joy of the Gospel); “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,” on
the environment; and “‘Amoris Laetitia’ (The Joy of Love), on Love in the
Family,” his reflections on the discussions of the Synod of Bishops in
2014 and 2015.

People skeptical about the
scientific proof that human activity is contributing to climate change objected
to parts of “Laudato Si’,” but the criticism was muted compared to
reactions to Pope Francis’ document on the family, especially regarding
ministry to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics and the possibility that,
under some conditions, some of those Catholics could return to the sacraments.

The strongest criticism came
from U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke and three other cardinals, who sent to the
pope and then publicly released in November 2016 a formal, critical set of
questions, known as “dubia,” insisting that allowing those Catholics
to receive the sacraments amounted to changing fundamental church teaching
about marriage, sexuality and the nature of the sacraments.

Pope Francis has not
responded to the cardinals, two of whom have since died. But in December, the
Vatican posted on its website the guidelines for interpreting “Amoris Laetitia”
developed by a group of Argentine bishops, as well as Pope Francis’ letter to
them describing the guidelines as “authentic magisterium.”

The guidelines by bishops in
the Buenos Aires region said the path of discernment proposed by Pope Francis
for divorced and civilly remarried couples “does not necessarily end in
the sacraments” but, in some situations, after a thorough process of
discernment, the pope’s exhortation “opens the possibility” to
reception of the sacraments.

In the document and throughout
his pontificate, Pope Francis has emphasized God’s mercy and the power of the
sacraments to spur conversion and nourish Christians as they try to progress in
holiness.

Like all popes, Pope Francis
frequently urges Catholics to go to confession, telling them it is not a
“torture chamber.” And he repeatedly gives priests blunt advice about
being welcoming and merciful to those who approach the confessional.

Like St. John Paul did each
Lent, Pope Francis hears confessions in St. Peter’s Basilica. But, he surprised
even his closest aides beginning in 2014 when, instead of going to the confessional
to welcome the first penitent, he turned and went to confession himself.

He also has surprised people
by being completely honest about his age. In April 2017, when he was still 80
years old, he told Italian young people that while they are preparing for the
future, “at my age we are preparing to go.” The young people present
objected loudly. “No?” the pope responded, “Who can guarantee
life? No one.”

From the beginning of his
papacy, Pope Francis has expressed love and admiration for retired Pope Benedict
XVI. Returning from South Korea in 2014, he said Pope Benedict’s honest,
“yet also humble and courageous” gesture of resigning cleared a path
for later popes to do the same.

“You can ask me: ‘What
if one day you don’t feel prepared to go on?'” he told the reporters
traveling with him. “I would do the same, I would do the same! I will pray
hard over it, but I would do the same thing. He (Pope Benedict) opened a door
which is institutional, not exceptional.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A native-Spanish speaker who grew
up with Italian-speaking relatives in Argentina, Pope Francis has a striking
way with words.

Bringing a background in literary themes and devices with
him to the papacy five years ago, the pope has shown himself to be a master of
metaphor and allegory.

His cross-cultural and eclectic knowledge of literature
and cinema has supplied him with numerous visual elements that he mixes and
matches with a religious message, creating such compound concoctions as
“the babysitter church” to describe a parish that doesn’t encourage
active evangelizers but only worries about keeping parishioners inside, out of
trouble.

“Armchair Catholics,” meanwhile, don’t let the
Holy Spirit lead their lives. They would rather stay put, safely reciting a
“cold morality” without letting the Spirit push them out of the house
to bring Jesus to others.

The Ignatian spirituality that formed him as a Jesuit
also comes through many of his turns of phrase. Just as a Jesuit seeks to use
all five senses to find and experience God, the pope does not hesitate to use
language that involves sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.

And so he urges the world’s priests to be “shepherds
living with the smell of sheep” by living with and among the people in
order to share Christ with them, and he tells his cardinals that all Catholic
elders need to share with the young their insight and wisdom, which become like
“fine wine that tastes better with age.”

No chorus is as wonderful as the squeaks, squeals and
banter of children, he once said before baptizing 32 babies in the Sistine
Chapel, assuring the parents that the commotion and chaos of new life was not
only welcome, but wonderful.

The pope’s visual vocabulary dips into the everyday with
sayings and scenarios from daily routines: like sin being more than a stain; it
is a rebellious act against God that requires more than just a trip “to
the laundromat and have it cleaned.”

Even country living holds some lessons. He once told
parishioners to bother their priests like a calf would pester its mother for
milk. Always knock “on their door, on their heart so that they give you
the milk of doctrine, the milk of grace and the milk of guidance.”

Food and drink hold numerous lessons. For example, to
convey the corrosive atmosphere a bitter, angry priest can bring to his
community, the pope said such priests make one think, “This man drinks
vinegar for breakfast. Then, for lunch, pickled vegetables. And, in the
evening, a nice glass of lemon juice.”

Christians must not be boastful and shallow like a
special sweet his Italian grandmother would prepare for Fat Tuesday, he has said.
Explaining how it is made from a very thin strip of pastry, the crunchy dessert
bloats and swells in a pan of hot oil. They are called “bugie” or
“little lies,” he said, because “they seem big, but they have
nothing inside, there’s no truth, no substance.”

Pope Francis’ frequent focus on the evils of living a
hypocritical or superficial life has meant employing descriptions such as showy
as peacocks, frivolous as an over-primped star and fleeting as soap bubbles.
“A soap bubble is beautiful! It has so many colors! But it lasts one
second and then what?”

To explain the kind of “terrible anxiety” that
results from a life of vanity built on lies and fantasy, the pope said,
“It’s like those people who put on too much makeup and then they’re afraid
of getting rained on and all the makeup running down their face.”

Pope Francis does not shy away from the gory or gross,
calling money — when it becomes an idol — the “devil’s dung” and
saying the lives of the corrupt are “varnished putrefaction” because,
like whitewashed tombs, they appear beautiful on the outside, but inside they
are full of dead bones.

For the pope, who sees Christ as a “true physician
of bodies and souls,” there is no shortage of medical metaphors.

Of the most well-known, the pope pines for “the
church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously
injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood
sugars! You have to heal his wounds.”

Speaking elsewhere about people who have done evil and
know it, Pope Francis said, they live “with a constant itch, with hives
that don’t leave them in peace.”

The consequence of pride or vanity, he warned on another
occasion, “is like an osteoporosis of the soul: The bones seem good from
the outside, but on the inside they are all ruined.”

Another medical problem afflicting souls diagnosed by
Pope Francis is “spiritual Alzheimer’s,” a condition that renders
some people incapable of remembering God’s love and mercy for them and,
therefore, unable to show mercy to others.

If people were to get a “spiritual
electrocardiogram,” he once asked, would it be flatlined because the heart
is hardened, unmoved and emotionless or would it be pulsating with the
prompting and prods of the Holy Spirit?

And whether people recognize it or not, God is their true
father, he has said. “First of all, he gave us his DNA, that is, he made
us his children; he created us in his image, in his image and likeness, like
him.”

Meeting with cardinals and the heads of Vatican offices
for an annual Christmas greeting, the pope explained the reform of the Roman
Curia as more than just a face-lift to rejuvenate or beautify an aging body,
but a process of deep, personal conversion.

Sometimes, he said the next Christmas, reform “is
like cleaning an Egyptian Sphinx with a toothbrush.”